I agree with the search bit about the charms, I was going to get rid of it from my next one. Got another idea that does not use toggle buttons, but would allow control of all sound and light settings in an interesting way. Would also free up some space for the notifications, apps, tasks areas.

I love this idea! But isn't it redundant to include the start and search button? (I know it's part of the charm, but maybe we could put something else?)

EDIT: I think you guys should start a Kickstarter project lol

The start button, probably yea, but I also put it there as while using large screened devices and with such an implementation, I guess it would be frustrating to keep reaching down every time you're handling the charms bar (which should be a lot) to reach for the physical start button. I really don't know but this is how I fee. Do you have any ideas for something to be put instead of the start button?

Now for the search button, it's really really important and different in functionality than the physical one. If you're familiar with Windows 8 you would get the universal search button and realize how important it is. You see, it searches within the downloaded apps within your phone locally, it also searches within apps themselves. For instance, if you searched for bananas, it would list the programs that contain internal search within them as a list, and if you press on any of them (say the Wikipedia app), it would launch a page within that app that contains this search result within. Believe me that is really really useful.

You may watch the video that I posted in the beginning of my thread, it is shown there clearly. Totally worth it!

The physical one can stay for web and Bing related searches, they are useful as well. Another suggestion is to use the physical search as an app related search, meaning if you where in the music player for instance, it would search within that app, or in contacts, it would launch the search in that app, etc.

In the future I hope WP gets rid of the capacitive keys, like android and Windows 8. I would love to slide in from the left to switch apps (a la iOS) and see open apps (like W8), slide in from the bottom for an app's app bar, slide in from the right for charms bar, and slide in from the top to close an app. I would like 5 charms in the bottom: notifications, back, start, search (universal search, like W8), settings (quick settings and a link to all settings, like W8), as well as show the system tray at the top. I would also like these gestures to rotate with the screen. Because this is sort of complicated, I would add a REAL start button to the bottom bezel of the phone (like the ATIV S) just for getting to the start screen, double-tapping to open multitasking menu, and holding down to activate TellMe If you're at start and hit start, I would like to be taken to the last open app. I want groups and horizontal support in the start screen. When a user hits the notifications charm, they should be taken to a shortcut of the left side of the start screen, a notifications menu.

Do you have any ideas for something to be put instead of the start button?

Favorite/Recent App list? Right now, my imagination is dead. I'll post something when I get an idea.

Originally Posted by linking1990

The physical one can stay for web and Bing related searches, they are useful as well. Another suggestion is to use the physical search as an app related search, meaning if you where in the music player for instance, it would search within that app, or in contacts, it would launch the search in that app, etc.

I have Windows 8 myself, and it totally makes sense. I think for simplicity's sake, the charm search would be what you suggested, and physical search stays the same.

What a great concept! Personally I like the second settings option. Also, would there be a notification icon counter on the lock screen?

I think the way that MS handles the notifications on lock screen is elegant enough, I would suggest though that they increase the number of apps that you can pull notifications from to 10 by afding another row at the bottom.

For the tray info, or even on the charms, a simple number can appear indicating the number of missed notifications. I forgot to do that as well, probably will do so at night. Thanks for the feedback mate. =)

The physical one can stay for web and Bing related searches, they are useful as well. Another suggestion is to use the physical search as an app related search, meaning if you where in the music player for instance, it would search within that app, or in contacts, it would launch the search in that app, etc.

I love having the unified search in windows 8 and RT.. I think the concept is great I just think that having 2 different search buttons that do 2 different things may confuse some people.. As it is right now, after you search using the bing search button, you get a list of results.. being web, local, media, blah blah... perhaps it would make more sense to just append "apps" to that which brings up all your searchable apps and then launches that app when you click on it (so searching "apple pie" will still bring up Wikipedia and not look for an apple pie app if that makes sense).

I know probably everyone here will know the difference and figure it all out in about 2 seconds since when we see the WPC post about the feature they will write up a little section about it and we will know to look for it when we get the update.. but think in about 5 months (hopefully..) when the updates are out and tested and bugs are ironed out and everything.... someone goes into a phone store and decides to pickup the phone... they aren't tech savvy and don't check these forums... will it confuse them to have 2 search buttons? will they know to even look for or use the other one? I might be off base and it might be more intuitive than im thinking but just what crossed my mind..

I love having the unified search in windows 8 and RT.. I think the concept is great I just think that having 2 different search buttons that do 2 different things may confuse some people.. As it is right now, after you search using the bing search button, you get a list of results.. being web, local, media, blah blah... perhaps it would make more sense to just append "apps" to that which brings up all your searchable apps and then launches that app when you click on it (so searching "apple pie" will still bring up Wikipedia and not look for an apple pie app if that makes sense).

I know probably everyone here will know the difference and figure it all out in about 2 seconds since when we see the WPC post about the feature they will write up a little section about it and we will know to look for it when we get the update.. but think in about 5 months (hopefully..) when the updates are out and tested and bugs are ironed out and everything.... someone goes into a phone store and decides to pickup the phone... they aren't tech savvy and don't check these forums... will it confuse them to have 2 search buttons? will they know to even look for or use the other one? I might be off base and it might be more intuitive than im thinking but just what crossed my mind..

I share your same point of view, that's why I believe MS should change the way they implement the physical search button, as it can be confusing for people that were used to app-related search. It's really harder for users to locate the search button in each and every app, it doesn't have a unified place as it should and in some apps like the music hub you won't find it!
If you see this in another way, that search button is the replacement for the one found in the app list, so it won't be that confusing if you know what I mean.

I really was hoping that this would make it to the home page of WPCentral under "from the forums" stories. I really have put lot's of effort into pulling this up.
It's not my design that's important to me I swear, it's about the idea itself. I really don't care if my name was scratched from this even, I just wanted this idea to be read by anyone from the WP team, they are all around the internet, and chances that this might get an idea for someone are big (that's what I saw from the feedback I got).

This is my first effort to try into improving the OS that I became to love, and if everyone was active enough this OS would grow even larger and in an advanced way over other OS's instead of keep playing the catch-up role. I think that this is more important than stories about the Lumia being dropped from over 72 m. We all know what's gonna happen with that!

thats brilliant... i preffer the second design but with the info. bar showing allways... so you know when you got a notification or your alarm set, or battery and all of that... sadly this wont be made because microsoft's mind is weird... they can do amazing, even extraordinary things... but they don't

thats brilliant... i preffer the second design but with the info. bar showing allways... so you know when you got a notification or your alarm set, or battery and all of that... sadly this wont be made because microsoft's mind is weird... they can do amazing, even extraordinary things... but they don't

Thank you my friend for the feedback. =)

Yes the number of possibilities can be countless with such a new and intuitive way that might give WP the edge over other OS's. I am pretty sure that there are lots and lots of ideas in each one of us that can improve WP. I really like WP and definitely I would like it to succeed, thats why I did my role and shared this idea with everyone.

One thing that's good about the WP development team is that they listen to consumers. I've seen many posts for different MS developers over the internet in different sites (including Joe Belfoir) and you never know if any of them came across such an idea and tried to implement it (not necessarily my idea). I really wanted this to gain traction so this would happen.

One thing that's good about the WP development team is that they listen to consumers. I've seen many posts for different MS developers over the internet in different sites (including Joe Belfoir) and you never know if any of them came across such an idea and tried to implement it (not necessarily my idea). I really wanted this to gain traction so this would happen.

well... if thats true then we can have chances by our side... you never know.... lets hope for the better... or at least something similar n_n

Ok, the Start button. I was thinking that maybe instead of the Start button that space could be used as a sort of multitask. It could display the logo of the last app, IE etc. that you were in. Some what similar to what Win 8 does (except Win 8 is on the left side). That way you can quickly jump from app to app or app to IE or IE to whatever. When there is nothing there the logo is the Windows logo. Maybe have a long press functionality too. Like somebody else mentioned something about favorites?

Ok, the Start button. I was thinking that maybe instead of the Start button that space could be used as a sort of multitask. It could display the logo of the last app, IE etc. that you were in. Some what similar to what Win 8 does (except Win 8 is on the left side). That way you can quickly jump from app to app or app to IE or IE to whatever. When there is nothing there the logo is the Windows logo. Maybe have a long press functionality too. Like somebody else mentioned something about favorites?

I really like this multitasking idea, it's really intuitive and can ease up navigating the OS a lot! Let me see what I can do by adding this with also a favourites or recently used apps button. This is great =D

While I like the idea of Charms Bar coming to Windows Phone as well (I believe it eventually will as the Windows and Windows Phone UI's converge further in the next version) I must admit that I don't like this vision of it at all.

Even if the obvious UI design flaws are disregarded and only the idea itself considered, I think this concept tries to accomplish way too many things at the same time compared to the original one by linking1990 which manages to keep it together in far more better fashion.

hm.... interesting, i thought of this when i saw the demo for the ubuntoo phone, though i really dislike how that phone does the side swipe to switch tasks (i feel the phone is too small and the potential for accidental swipe is too high), but this charm bar idea is great, i don't think they need that much buttons though, probably just notification and settings will suffice for the most part, may be even a video out like playto, search still belongs to the search hw button and we have the windows key already, don't need another

hm.... interesting, i thought of this when i saw the demo for the ubuntoo phone, though i really dislike how that phone does the side swipe to switch tasks (i feel the phone is too small and the potential for accidental swipe is too high), but this charm bar idea is great, i don't think they need that much buttons though, probably just notification and settings will suffice for the most part, may be even a video out like playto, search still belongs to the search hw button and we have the windows key already, don't need another

I really hope you read all the thoughts that others came up with, and the vision I have through the earlier comments.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts :).